Savoury Sables

These savoury sables will be perfect on a cheese platter, maybe with some brie cheese, marinated olives and spicy sweet nuts. Sables is french butter cookie that has a shortbread-like crumb. My version is extremely easy to make, and these sables will be so much more sophisticated than cheese crackers on a cheese platter for sure.

You may notice that I have left the measurement for the parmesan and olives in volume (cups) rather than weight (grams). This is because the amount of these ingredients does not need to be exact, and you can adjust them to your taste.

I’m not a huge fan of rosemary, but these savoury sables do need a touch of herbs. So I added a rosemary leaf to each biscuits, just enough to lightly perfume these biscuits. If you don’t mind rosemary, go ahead and add 1-2 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary into the flour mixture.




Savoury Sables

Makes 24 numbers of 5cm diameter cookies.

200 grams plain flour
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped pitted black olives
Black pepper
150 grams unsalted butter
Fresh rosemary to garnish
Sea or rock salt

Cut butter into small (about 5cm) cubes and allow to soften. This step is especially important as the butter needs to be really soft. Cutting the butter into small cubes helps soften the butter quickly and makes it easy to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture later.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, parmesan, olives and a grinding of black pepper. Knead the butter into the flour mixture with your hands until the ingredients are evenly distributed and a ball of dough has formed. Do not overwork the dough. Shape into a 10cm (diameter) round. Wrap in cling wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm.

Roll dough out between 2 sheets of baking paper to 4mm thick. Using a 5cm (diameter) fluted cutter, cut out biscuits. Place onto prepared trays. Re-roll leftover dough and repeat.

Sprinkle each biscuit with salt. Lightly press one rosemary leaf on each biscuit. Freeze biscuits for 10 minutes while waiting for oven to heat up.

Heat the oven to 180 degree celsius fan force. Bake biscuits for 15 minutes, or until golden. Allow to cool on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Store biscuits in an airtight container for up to 4 days.